7 bizarre facts about fast food restaurants
Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the food lovers of online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat and what to cook. This time our chefs serve you: to make today: bizarre facts about fast food restaurants.
People who work behind the counter at McDonald's or in the kitchen at Burger King have knowledge that ordinary mortals will never know. Fortunately, they were brave enough to share their knowledge on the internet. Did you already know this about your favorite snack place?
Why there are little balls on the lid of your soda
On the lid of your cup of soda there are weird little balls. What are they doing there? When your drink is poured, a ball is pressed down so that the people at the counter know which cup contains regular cola and which one contains diet. They don't have to open the lids and take a sip from everywhere to taste what's in which cup, and you don't have to argue with your drive companion. Pure win!
Why the busiest time is the best time to eat a hamburger
It's annoying that you have to stand in line, but the busiest time at the counter is also the best time to eat fast food. That means the food rotates quickly, so you can be sure that your burger comes fresh off the grill and hasn't been waiting under a heat lamp for ten minutes for the next customer. Mystery guests are also usually deployed during peak hours; an extra quality guarantee.
Why you order more at the kiosk
Well, not automatically, but it has been found that people order more at such a kiosk than at the counter. How is that possible? Apparently, we still find it embarrassing to order two hamburgers while we're going to eat alone anyway. Moreover, at those ordering screens, you feel less rushed: there's no employee waiting for you with their fingers hovering over the cash register buttons. More time to choose apparently means choosing more food. Third reason: when ordering, just before you check out, some matching menu options are shown, irresistible!
Why a milkshake is really the worst
Thick fatty burgers, huge cups of cola... It won't surprise you that eating at a fast food restaurant is really not healthy. But do you know what the absolute worst is? The milkshakes. They contain twice as much sugar as you should normally eat in a day and are packed with saturated animal fats. So the next time you tell yourself that it's just fruit and cold milk: that's really not the case.
Why the lid of a McFlurry has such a weird shape
Do you know why a McFlurry has such a strange lid? To prevent hedgehogs from getting their heads stuck in the lid. Unfortunately, most people prefer to throw their McFlurry cup next to the trash can rather than in it. At night, hedgehogs come rummaging around the trash can, and the leftover ice cream at the bottom of such a cup is irresistible to them. When hedgehogs were found with a McFlurry lid around their necks, McDonald's decided to change the design. Well done, but please just throw your trash in the bin.
Why there is such a weird spoon in your McFlurry
In a sundae, there is a regular plastic spoon, but sticking out of your McFlurry is this weird hollow thing. You can easily scoop ice cream with it, so we never thought much about it until we read why the scoop has such a strange shape. The soft serve goes into the cup, the filling is added, and then the scoop goes in, which fits perfectly into a kind of mixer that mixes everything together. Aha!
The plastic spoons at McDonald's are a thing of the past: the super snacker has switched to wooden spoons for the ice creams. Better for the environment, says the chain. But not all customers agree: in nearly nine thousand posts on Facebook, there has been a fierce backlash against this change. They feel that the entire ice cream tastes like wood because of the wooden spoon.
Why you shouldn't be the first customer in a coffee shop in the morning
Let's wrap up with a coffee tip: every evening, the coffee machines of Starbucks and its friends are thoroughly cleaned. If you're the first one in the morning to get a cup of comfort (or a latte the size of a pillowcase, we don’t judge), then there's a small chance that some cleaning agent ends up in your coffee. Let those other people go ahead.
